We need to take action to help today’s aboriginal children
By Letter to the Editor on June 9, 2021.
Editor:
Instead of more studies about what was wrongly done in the past to these children, we could take action to save the ones living today. One current area of neglect is fetal alcohol syndrome. Back in the Klein days, a Calgary child psychiatrist, Dr. O’Malley, was conducting fetal alcohol clinics that had a two-year waiting list. The government cancelled these clinics and still granted Dr. O’Malley money to go to the U.S. and study guess what…? Fetal alcohol syndrome! He not surprisingly has since stayed in America. This neglect of our aboriginal children is the successor to residential schools. Let’s turn things around and help today’s aboriginal children.
Larry Mackillop
Nanton
-1
Helping aboriginal children was the mammoth mistake made by establishing the residential schools. Learn from mistakes made. Let them look after their own children, quit meddling, or your grandkids will pay! Forever.
Heaven knows we already provide enough facilities, programs, funding etc to help them.
that was helping?! odd that so many racists do not acknowledge they are such.
Nothing racist about my comments. Just saying it like it really is. The racist issues come from people like you that have their head in the sand.
Larry,
How do you propose to stop them from being alcoholics and creating babies with FAS? On top of FAS, is the fact that 39% of the babies born on the blood reserve are born addicted to narcotics. If that wasn’t bad enough, the kids on the reserve are being taught racism and hatred. All of what I just wrote is child abuse on a grand scale, and it should be headline news.
Above and beyond that, what do you suggest we do about it? Make it illegal for them to drink alcohol? Sterilize the addicted? Forced abortion for damaged fetuses?
The Indigenous people are very vocal about the atrocities that occurred to Indigenous children in the past, but say nothing about this Indigenous child abuse that is occurring right now.
The only thing that is going to help them, is themselves. Unfortunately, most of them dwell on the past and blame someone or something thing else for their actions. As such, they keep passing on negative and destructive emotions to their kids, and this results in a lot of their kids becoming addicts. Very, very few Indigenous people realize that they themselves are perpetuating addiction, and that it is only them that can stop it. It was a rare admission when recently, a Sage Clan member said exactly that.
being born addicted to narcotics is the least of the issues – the effects are not ever lasting, unlike fasd. fasd is the primary issue, as are the additional traumas heaped upon those kids as they experience nightmare after nightmare through neglect, abuse, and horrible cases of violence. those kids need help. like all kids, they are born innocent. they will need help their entire life…until a miracle emerges that undoes fasd. our streets, courts, jails are filled with fasd. people are the victims of crimes committed by fasd. they cannot help themselves; they typically have little impulse control due to poor reasoning skills. having fasd is not a choice – no one asks for it. as such, it is a community issue; it is a human issue. serious and likely drastic measures will need to be taken to stop this cycle; it is time to stop enabling the creation of victim after victim.
So clearly you are suggesting sterilization as the ultimate solution?? Really?
Granted, initial victims were created. However, continuously playing the victim just breeds generations of victims. That is exactly what they need to recognize.
BTW- I don’t think your assertion in regards to fetal narcotics addiction is correct (or at least not thorough). Putting vast amounts of narcotics into a fetuses’ developing brain, body, and immune system is most definitely going to damage the fetus. Further to that, an addict should not be raising a child, so even if the fetus has no damage, the child is going to be damaged by being raised terribly by an addict.
it is correct enough that narcotic use by mom is a non-issue, and certainly it is not near as wicked as is alcohol use that results in a baby with fasd. also, to be clear, i am not suggesting in any way that being born with fasd is playing the victim. fasd is an absolute destroyer: it almost always (if not 100%) condemns the person to a life of hell, especially if they are not provided ongoing care and support. fasd is by far the biggest catalyst when we discuss poverty, crime, homelessness, addictions, and the consequent far reaching social costs; add to this the human cost. it is inhumane whereby we do absolutely little to stop fasd. we also do far too little to ensure the victim living with fasd is cared for (mentorship; group home living; ongoing structure…the costs of this will pale to the cost of streets to court to prison, plus the cost of criminal acts to society). are we as callous with any other persons that are so great in need of assistance?
You said: It is correct enough that narcotic use by mom is a non-issue
We’ll have to agree to disagree on that…and believe me, I totally disagree 🙂
Anyway, in regards to the extraordinarily high addiction rate on the blood reserve, what do you propose as a solution?
not sure what is the basis of your position. we will agree that it is best to avoid any practices that can adversely affect a fetus. however, there have been numerous studies that have examined the effects of various stimulants…heroin, nicotine, amphetamine, cannabis, alcohol…and only alcohol has significant and far reaching and irreversible adverse effects. that said, again, i would err on the side of health as much as possible if i were pregnant. perhaps you hanging on to the propaganda/lies that were perpetrated by govt and idiot-do-gooders with the crack baby bs, which has long been proven to be bs. here is the scoop on opioid use by the mayo. again, not ideal to use drugs, but certainly not anywhere near the destructive force that is liquor. https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/pregnancy-week-by-week/in-depth/opioid-use-during-pregnancy/art-20380741
as for what i would do: in addition to what i suggested in my last entry here, i also noted in the other similar thread that we need to get on this for real. while sterilisation is drastic, forced iuds or some other similar control that can be undone only via intervention is a legitimate response. the pill, condoms, etc are not the answer because they require on the spot responsible decisions, which are not at all a strength of fasd. abortions are another option, if there is evidence the fetus is alcohol affected (is carrier a binge drinker). we are well into generations of fasd getting pregnant, binge drinking whilst pregnant, and having fasd offspring. of course, we also have fasd coming from those not fasd but simply because they are binge drinkers. for some reason, it is not a crime to produce an fasd baby. and yet, it is among the most heinous acts one person can do to another.
I’m directly refuting your assertion that, “It is correct enough that narcotic use by mom is a non-issue”, and I find that the brief article you posted as evidence, is simply inadequate to prove your position. Ironically, the article you posted actually disproves your position.
Furthermore, you keep saying that it’s not as bad as alcohol, but whether or not it is, or isn’t as bad as alcohol, is irrelevant to your assertion. Especially when your accompanying assertion is, “narcotic use by mom is a non-issue”.
The following is a much more thorough look at the consequences of fetal exposure to drugs. Here’s an excerpt from the opiate section.
The probability of preeclampsia, premature labor and rupture of membranes, placental insufficiency, abruptio placentae, intrauterine growth retardation, and intrauterine death increases greatly with illicit opiate use during pregnancy (Bashore et al, 1981; Hulse et al, 1998; Kaltenbach et al, 1998).
Even with a successful labor and delivery, neonates often have low birthweight and smaller head circumference as well as experience symptoms of opiate withdrawal (Binder and Vavrinkova, 2008; Hunt et al, 2008; Kandall et al, 1976). Some clinical studies have also suggested an increased prevalence of heart defects, autonomic dysregulation (Paul et al, 2014), nystagmus (Gupta et al, 2012), and strabismus (Gill et al, 2003) in children exposed prenatally to opiates. At the pre- and elementary school ages, these children show motor and cognitive impairments (Bunikowski et al, 1998; Guo et al, 1994; Hunt et al, 2008), inattention (Hickey et al, 1995; Ornoy et al, 1996), hyperactivity (Ornoy et al, 1996), and an increase in ADHD when exposed prenatally to heroin (Ornoy et al, 2001).
The damage of prenatal opiate exposure is debilitating and long lasting, and physicians must continue to track cohorts of exposed children to further understand the impact into adulthood.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4262892/
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